Diversity in Reading: Ensuring Books Reflect Students
Help me give my students an independent reading experience that they can connect to. My students need Blended, Mexican White Boy, and American Born Chinese because they need books that not only reflect them, but their experiences.
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
My classroom is filled with students that are just getting to a brand new school with kids they knew from elementary and those that they have never met before. While Middle School can be a wonderful experience filled with joy and happiness, and a time where students begin to create the person that they want to be in, the reality is that it is also a time where they start to doubt themselves and where they begin to make enemies and to doubt themselves.
Middle School is a time where students are finding the ups and downs of life and while this is inevitable in life, learning should not feel the same way.
My students know that in my classroom they are all valued and they feel included.
My Project
I would love to be able to purchase diverse and inclusive books for my classroom. Building a love of reading is about more than choosing a "fun book". It also means allowing students to see themselves reflected in the books that they read while giving them a safe place to dive into those reflections. Contemporary children's fiction has changed so much and has increasingly become more diverse and inclusive, so it would be amazing to be able to do the same in my classroom.
The literature students read should reflect who they are.
They need to know that they are not alone in the world and that what they face everyday can be overcome and having books to reflect these experiences are a step in the right direction.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Leeper and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.